"Iron Man 3" Review and Discussion Thread (spoilers)

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by Dream, Apr 23, 2013.

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Rate Iron Man 3

  1. Excellent

    72 vote(s)
    45.9%
  2. Above Average

    61 vote(s)
    38.9%
  3. Average

    16 vote(s)
    10.2%
  4. Below Average

    4 vote(s)
    2.5%
  5. Poor

    4 vote(s)
    2.5%
  1. Dream

    Dream Admiral Admiral

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    Like I said before, Vanko and Hammer were never a threat. They were only a danger to Stark because he was distracted by his reactor issue which I consider the main problem.

    Vanko was beaten very easily on the race track after Stark suited up, and the final fight in two minutes. The Hammer drones gave Stark more of a problem.

    Hammer? Pepper had him arrested by the NYPD. Pathetic.
     
  2. Turtletrekker

    Turtletrekker Admiral Admiral

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    I would agree.
     
  3. Aldo

    Aldo Admiral Admiral

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    I'll give you that one. But then again, like I mentioned in my initial post here, I really enjoyed Iron Man 2, I know a lot of people disliked the fact that a stretch of the film was kind of used to set up Avengers, but I liked that part too, and I liked Black Widow's role in the film.

    I do have issues with Iron Man 3, this is true. I think the best part of it for me was dealing with how the incident in the Avenger's affected Stark. Pepper suiting up (albeit briefly) was also a really awesome moment too.
     
  4. Dream

    Dream Admiral Admiral

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    They should have just kept Pepper with the Extremis super powers to end the movie. It would have been the first time in a comic book movie where the story ended with the girlfriend being more powerful than the male hero.

    I'll choose to think of Tony's line about her being cured as him solving the exploding problem. In my mind she still has the badass fire super powers. Also I think the sex would have been explosive. :)
     
  5. The Old Mixer

    The Old Mixer Mih ssim, mih ssim, nam, daed si Xim. Moderator

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    Fixed that for you.
     
  6. Alidar Jarok

    Alidar Jarok Everything in moderation but moderation Moderator

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    I can see the argument that the Mandarin was associated with the terrorists in the first film but, unless I'm forgetting something, what's the connection to the second film? I found the first film to be relatively self-contained and not having an Iron Man 3 connection didn't really leave any plot holes.

    Anyway, I liked it. Very good action. Close to the first better than the second, not as good as The Avengers.

    When I saw the twist, I half expected he was throwing them for a loop and it would turn out that he was real after all. However, Ben Kingsley played the character they created for the movie very well. I'm not an Iron Man comics reader (I think my only real intro to Iron Man before the movies was a Spiderman or X-Men cartoon crossover). Once I saw that the villain was Killian, I was fine with it. The Extremis people were quite good and there was essentially an army of them so the threat was quite real. The action scene at the end was great.
     
  7. Corran Horn

    Corran Horn Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Exactly. Have Iron Man land on him and that's it. He's dead.
     
  8. Alidar Jarok

    Alidar Jarok Everything in moderation but moderation Moderator

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    To be fair, his level of vulnerability would be as good as the plot demands, so Ironman wouldn't necessarily win so easily.
     
  9. Captain Craig

    Captain Craig Vice Admiral Admiral

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    For Alidar: The connection of the 10 Rings in IM2 is admittedly paper tissue thin. I went looking in Google Images for a screenshot of the credits. I had thought the credits listed the "mystery man" who gives Ivan the plane ticket and credentials to get into Monaco was listed as "10 Rings Informant". So, even if my memory is close he's never actually identified in the film as such.

    Not that this next thing strengthens the case for the average movie goer but in the Special Features of IM2 they do a segment and do refer to him in that manner "10 Rings Mystery Informant".
     
  10. Alidar Jarok

    Alidar Jarok Everything in moderation but moderation Moderator

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    Eh, the credits are the credits. I'm not putting a lot of faith into that. Granted, I agree that the original plan was to do this, but plans change. I can't hold that against Iron Man 3.
     
  11. Captain Craig

    Captain Craig Vice Admiral Admiral

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    True. They really should've spelled it out more in IM2, no matter how briefly during the actual film. I feel the special features piece to fully identify him as such was their way of trying to acknowledge that they didn't do it in the film, editing, rewrite or what have you and it got lost along the way.

    Still, Feige acknowledges Shane approached him to change Mandarin and he approved. I'm curious to know how he was written in the film prior to Shane Black's approach to go with what we got.
     
  12. Alidar Jarok

    Alidar Jarok Everything in moderation but moderation Moderator

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    I'd be curious too. Mind you, I don't mind the change at all, I'm just curious about the creative process always.
     
  13. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I don't think I'd commented on the 10 Rings/Mandarin thing yet, but I think there are two explanations, both of which have been mentioned by other posters. Either A) Killian was behind the group the whole time or B) he just stole the image and decided to use it for Mandarin.
     
  14. Booji

    Booji Commodore Premium Member

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    I'll go with C.... Marvel simply threw continuity out the window for IM3.

    That being said, there really wasn't anything tying the Mandarin from IM3 to the 10 Rings group from the first movie other than fake Mandarin having 10 rings on his fingers. And the common movie-goer wouldn't notice any of that.

    The more I think about it, the more I think Marvel dropped the ball with IM3. After Avengers, it would make sense to introduce alien tech (the rings) to go up against Tony-tech. A more comic inspired Mandarin would have simply been a more dangerous foe. I just couldn't buy Killian as a criminal mastermind at all.

    and speaking of which, just what was Killian's motivation? Maybe I zoned out when that got explained, but to me it seemed like he went emo simply because Tony blew off their roof meeting.
     
  15. Chu'lak

    Chu'lak Lieutenant

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    Iron Kiss Kiss Lethal Weapon Man Rises 3: But it was pretty terrible. The whole movie seemed like Downey saying, folks, thank you, I appreciate what this franchise has done for me and the Jack Nicholson Batman money that Avengers made for me (70 million), but I need to move on. I’ll do Avengers 2 and maybe three, but let’s wrap up the Iron Man series. Let’s face it, only the first one was really good, and I think that was only because we were all so surprised at Downey’s performance. That and for the first time ever I didn’t loathe Gwenyth Paltrow on screen.

    I walked out of the theatre kinda meh. They came too close to Spider Man three retconning for my tastes, Guy Pearce yelling “I AM THE MANDARIN!!” I think he almost went ahead and said ”And I was the one who had you confined in the cave!”

    But the ending hacked me off, but it didn’t for a few days. A few days later I found out in the Junior Novelization the end of the book isn’t “I am Iron Man.” Its “I am Tony Stark.” What a perfect way that would have bookended the trilogy but the Mouse is greedy and they’re going to keep backing up the dump trucks full of money to Downey’s house, so they changed the ending.
     
  16. Alidar Jarok

    Alidar Jarok Everything in moderation but moderation Moderator

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    Was there any actual connection to the Ten Rings from the first movie and the Mandarin now?
     
  17. Captain Craig

    Captain Craig Vice Admiral Admiral

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    The name/title of Mandarin is never explicitly used in Iron Man 1, no, not that I recall. Someone can say otherwise if I'm mistaken.

    At the close of Iron Man 3 Killian yells, paraphrase, "I've been in control the whole time, I AM THE MANDARIN"

    What is "the whole time"? Does that encompass the 13yrs back to Bern that you were stiffed on the rooftop? Implying that indeed you did have a hand in anything 10 Rings related over that time?
    Does it mean only since the Mandarin came on the scene? Which would be less than a year, cause he only emerges post-The Events in NY of The Avengers film as Tony makes mention of in the opening of the film when he 'turns on his tv'.

    I'm not convinced they thought that out, the ramifications of what the 10 Rings/Mandarin change would mean to it in the big picture. Shane Black asked for a change and got it, Feige should've been the one looking at it more in context of big picture.

    Could the 10 Rings group be pissed they've been co-opted, maybe? Could Killian be a ruse of a real Mandarin? Maybe? But to wheel out a Mandarin who actually is a threat now, in this cycle of IM films, seems riskier cause most moviegoers have accepted the joke version.
     
  18. Alidar Jarok

    Alidar Jarok Everything in moderation but moderation Moderator

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    My question was whether there was anything in Iron Man 3 that tied to the terrorist group in Iron Man 1.
     
  19. Captain Craig

    Captain Craig Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Other than the 10 Rings logo used, not that I recall.
     
  20. Alidar Jarok

    Alidar Jarok Everything in moderation but moderation Moderator

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    Ok, did they use that logo the first time?